This chapter is from the book

This chapter is from the book

Illustrator is all about paths. And so, appropriately, there are all kinds of ways to select and edit paths in Illustrator. You can select an entire path and reshape, rescale, rotate, skew, or distort it, and so on. Or, you can select a path segment—the section of the path between two anchors—select just some path segments, or select a set of anchors.

You can also group more than one path and edit the group as you would an individual object. Selecting objects within groups has always been a bit sticky in Illustrator, but CS4 has a group isolation feature that makes this process easier.

Illustrator CS4 also allows you to align anchors. This means, for example, that you can vertically align a group of selected anchors so they are all on a horizontal plane.

In this chapter, I'll show you how to use all these selection and editing techniques. I'll also provide a basic overview for how to use Illustrator's powerful Pathfinder tools, which combine and divide combinations of paths in just about every conceivable way.

#31 Selecting Path Segments and Paths

Illustrator paths are made up of anchors with path segments connecting them. You can select and edit an entire path when you want to copy, move, or resize the path. You can select either an anchor or a path segment to reshape an object.

You can select path segments by clicking on (or within three pixels of) the segment with the Direct Selection tool.

You Can Copy and Paste into Flash CS4

You can copy Illustrator objects directly into Flash CS4. This is new to CS4 and makes it easy to design animation in Illustrator and move images to Flash for programming and animation.

Clicking on an object fill with the Direct Selection tool selects the whole object.

If you want to select a set of anchors, you can use the Direct Selection tool for that as well—Shift-click on anchors to select them. Or, you can use the Lasso tool to select multiple anchors by drawing a marquee around a section of an object or objects.

The Selection tool is used for selecting entire paths and groups of objects. With the Direct Selection tool you can select individual anchor points, path segments, or entire objects. To select an object or group with the Selection tool, just click on the path. If the object has a fill, you can click on that as well.

The Group Selection tool in the Direction Selection tearoff appears as a white arrow with a plus sign. One click with the Group Selection tool selects an object, clicking again selects a group that the original object is part of, clicking a third time selects a larger group that the selected group is part of, and so on.

If you prefer to select objects only by clicking the path (never the fill), you can edit that property of the Selection tool by choosing Illustrator (Mac) or Edit (Windows) > Preferences > Selection & Anchor Display, and then selecting the Object Selection by Path Only check box.

You can add objects to or remove objects from a selection set by holding down the Shift key as you click with the Selection tool. This works with path segments or anchors selected with the Direct Selection tool as well.

NOTE

When you have either the Selection or Direct Selection tool selected, you can quickly toggle between selection tools by holding down (or releasing) the Command (Mac)/Control (Windows) key.

Copying an Anchor

If you click and drag on an anchor with the Direct Selection tool, and then press the Option/Alt key, you duplicate the anchor at the new position while leaving the original anchor in place. The resulting new anchor will connect two new path segments, creating a new, open path object not connected to the original shape. You can also use this method to duplicate a line segment.